A skunk at the garden party: the Sochi Olympics, state-sponsored homophobia and prospects for human rights through mega sporting events

Abstract

Mega sporting events, such as the Olympics, are sites of political struggle. Situating mega sporting events within the context of critical social theory, this article examines the potential of modern sport to serve as a vehicle for foreign policy and the promotion of international human rights. This article examines the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games in light of Russian legislation that bans ‘propaganda of non-traditional relations’, resulting in what many have described as state-sponsored homophobia. Highlighting the international community's response to this legislation, such as threatened boycotts, political statements and symbolic gestures of protest, the implications of the Sochi case study reveal the potential of mega sporting events to advance human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens in Russia and perhaps elsewhere. As human rights are historically and culturally contested, this article discusses the role of identity politics and liberal internationalism within the realm of global sport diplomacy. Finally, the Sochi case study contributes to future discussions concerning efforts at balancing hosting rights, human rights and the social responsibilities associated with mega sporting events. Specific recommendations are provided.

Keywords:

• Sochi Olympics
• mega sporting events
• state-sponsored homophobia
• social sustainability
• human rights
• LGBT rights

Notes

1. I credit Fred Sainz, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) spokesman, for originally using this expression in reference to the Sochi Games and Russia's anti-gay legislation. Sainz stated, ‘there is a skunk at the garden party that can't be ignored’ (Johnson, 2013).

2. This article focuses on mega sporting events based upon dominant forms of international athletic competition, rather than events organized specifically for a traditionally disenfranchised group. While the Gay Games, originally called the Gay Olympics, are open to all who wish to participate, without regard to sexual orientation and qualifying standards, the event is organized by, and specifically for LGBT athletes. It is telling that a more spontaneous organization of an athletic event for LGBT athletes directly following the Olympic Competition in Sochi, the Open Games, were systematically prevented from proceeding, as venues and hotels were spontaneously closed to organizers and participants due to apparent bomb threats, misplaced and cancelled reservations, and so on.

3. Several authors have articulated the distinction between active and passive sport tourism (Glyptis, 1982; Standeven & De Knop, 1999), as well as vicarious participation (Weed, 2008; Weed & Bull, 2009). Reference to dialogic participants in human rights struggles actively associated with mega sporting events further complicates these conceptual distinctions.

4. The hosting of these major sporting events would seem to suggest that South Africa has achieved broad international recognition and success, not only for its own country, but also for a larger African Renaissance. This historical development, reflective perhaps of the nation's social, political and economic development, spurs the country to bid and host future, even larger, mega-sporting events (Cornelissen & Swart, 2006; Hiller, 1998). As many countries have learned, however, this cycle of bidding and hosting mega sporting events comes at a formidable cost. Residents of these countries, as seen in Brazil prior to both the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, argue that resources utilized during this process might better have been spent on socially sustainable programs for citizens of the host country who have significant needs (Gibson & Watts, 2013).

5. The joint letter can be accessed at https://allout-production-site.s3.amazonaws.com/allout-202-Open_Letter_to_IOC.pdf. The protection of gender identity within the Olympic Charter would not only expand the limited definition of human rights recognized by the IOC currently; this protection would also confront the IOC's discriminatory practice of sex determination testing or what is commonly referred to as ‘gender testing’. While the IOC officially discontinued its previous process of gender verification testing in 1999, the organization continues to utilize hyper-androgenism testing made public as a result of the 2009 Caster Semenya case. For the IOC's regulations on female hyper-androgenism, drafted in advance of the 2012 London Olympics Games, see http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf. For more on the controversial topic of gender verification testing, see Camporesi and Maugeri (2010); Fastiff (1992); Gandert, Bae, Woerner, and Meece (2013); Simpson et al. (2000).

6. The comparison of LGBT persecution in Russia with the Holocaust may seem hyperbolic until we heard the vitriol coming out of Russia in the build-up to the Games. Ivan Okhlobystin, a Russian television personality and former Orthodox priest, stated emphatically that he would like to shove homosexuals into ovens and burn them alive (Sieczkowski, 2013). Despite these disturbing comparisons between Nazi Germany and Russia today, Fierstein's assertion that few protested the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin is not historically accurate. There was a significant international campaign against the 1936 Games, nearly leading the USA and other nations to boycott Berlin in favor of Barcelona (Hilton, 2011). As Eisen (1984) argues, the ultimate decision by the USA to attend the Berlin Games was a byproduct of international diplomacy rather than moral conviction. This form of international sport diplomacy has consistently sought to separate politics from mega sporting events, too often turning a blind eye to troubling human rights records of host nations.

7. This ‘separate but equal’ policy was established in 1896, central to the US Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. The statute held that as long as separate facilities for different races were equal, segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, which claims that ‘no State shall … deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws’. It was not until 1954, two decades after Owens and Louis competed in these symbolic athletic events, that the US Supreme Court unanimously overturned the earlier amendment with Brown v. Board of Education, paving the way for racial integration and civil rights for African-Americans.

8. This political act of resistance on an Olympic medal stand occurred following the formation of the Olympic Project for Human Rights in 1967, which had initially called for an African American boycott of the 1968 Games. Both Owens and Louis, legendary African-American athletes of the 1930s, publically opposed the Olympic boycott (Hartmann, 2004; Zirin, 2008).

9. In anticipation of the 2104 Games, Billie Jean King, famed American women's tennis player and openly lesbian member of the US controversial Olympic delegation to Sochi, commented, ‘sometimes I think we need a John Carlos moment. I think there's watershed moments, benchmarks, I would hope the majority of the athletes would speak out. It's a great platform’ (Keating, 2013).

10. In total, there was an estimated 539 hours of NBC television coverage of the Sochi Olympics, with another 1000 hours of online coverage. The breakdown of coverage was NBC (185 hours), NBCSN (230), MSNBC (45), USA Network (43), CNBC (36) and NBCOlympics.com (1000 hours, online) (Chad, 2014). In the 1 hour, 59 minutes and 42 seconds devoted to LGBT issues related to Russia's anti-propaganda laws, MSNBC aired 66% (78:47 minutes) of the coverage, followed by NBC (26:46 minutes or 30%) and CNBC (4:02 minutes or 3%) (HRC, 2014).

11. The Human Rights Watch (2014) document can be accessed at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/SOCHI%20-%20HRW%20Submission%20to%20Olympic%20Agenda%202020%20Apr2014.pdf

12. The five broad themes central to the 2020 reform agenda include: the Uniqueness of the Games, Athletes at the Heart of the Olympic Movement, Olympism in Action, the IOC's Role and the Structure and Organization of the IOC. The Human Rights Watch Submission to the IOC views integrating human rights in the Olympic Movement to be part of Theme 5, the Structure and Organization of the IOC. Recommendations to the Reform Agenda will be presented for final approval at an IOC Extraordinary Session on 6–7 December 2014 (IOC, 2014).

13. As Ioffe (2013) has written,

the perception of homosexuality in Russia is that it's both a perversion of nature and a fashion import from the corrupt West: something into which a man can slip if he's had a bit too much vodka – by all accounts a common occurrence in Russia – and as a posture one adopts to be cool. Thus, the ‘propaganda’ ban. Homosexuality is seen as an aggressive ad campaign that, traditionalists fear, will persuade impressionable young minds that being gay not only isn't abnormal and abhorrent, but stylish and hip.

14. Outside of North and Latin America, the one exception is the Asian stink badger, recently added to the skunk family (Koepfli et al., 2008). To be sure, there are no actual skunks in Russia, just a host of metaphoric varieties ripe to spoil a future garden party, such as the 2018 FIFA World Cup.